Authors: Iceberg Slim
Mama backed up and said, “Hol on, ah said ah had uh gun. But ah ain't got no bullits. Why she slap you 'roun?”
Hattie said loudly, “She told me right in front of my boyfriend and kids that she had heard from one of her stool pigeons that I was screwing four or five guys on the QT.
“The bitch told me I should stop giving it away and sell it, and then I wouldn't have to be a parasite on relief. I told her to get out, but she wouldn't. So then I tried to shove her out.
“She slapped me and grabbed my dress and threw me against the wall. These rotten-hearted workers act biggity, like it's their money the poor people get. The bastards are always snooping around us to find something wrong so they can cut us off from relief. White people on relief don't never see them.”
Mama took her arm and said, “Thet dirty niggah is got powful white folks back uh her, an' yu do sumthin' tu her, them white folks sen yu tu th' pen. Whut them younguns yu got do then? Yu bes' cool off an' lemme brew us up some coffee.”
An hour later I watched her go out the front door, dry-eyed. Hattie had bandy legs that were wide apart, and she had a wiggly, grindy walk like she was riding an invisible penis.
I went to the front window and waited for Papa to come back from the Southside. I thought he'd never come. It was 6
P.M.
when I saw him come down the street. He was a sad sight with his shoulders drooping as he walked slowly down the front walk with his head low.
I went to the door and let him in. I took his coat and hung it on a nail in the hall. He walked slowly to the sofa. We all followed him. I sat beside him and put my head on his lap. His voice broke many times as he told us about Soldier's bad break.
Soldier had driven to the Southside without incident. Then at Thirty-fifth and State Streets he parked the truck and started across the street to a greasy spoon for black coffee. He was struck by a hit-and-run driver.
Papa found Soldier at County Hospital with a compound fracture of the hip and back and chest injuries. Papa got the key to the truck and went to get it off the street. He was shocked to find that it had been stripped of battery and tires.
I couldn't help crying at Papa's emotional account. Junior and
the twins left to visit the Cox and Greene flats. Mama sat silently beside Papa and me for a long time. I looked up at Papa. He was working his jaw muscles like he always did when he was worried.
Mama sighed deeply and said softly, “Ole Cheecogo gonna' whup th' Tilson famli iffen we ain't kerful. Sojer an' th' truck laid up an' Ah got fawty singuls en th' lard can. Ole landlady be at thet do' sticken her han' out tu git thet big sixty ten days away. An' also, we ain' got no vittles 'roun heah tu las' tu even nex' week.
“Ah ain't cryin' mah joy tu do it, but it 'pears thet Ah oughta put mah pride en storage an' be uh mop haid an' tolet brush fo' the paddies 'til we git on solid groun'. Ah don' see no way but thet. Ah sho ain't gonna' kiss th' behin' uh no niggah chaity wukur. Whut yu gonna' say 'bout thet, Frank?”
Papa swung himself so quickly and violently to face Mama that I almost tumbled from his lap.
He said in a tight voice, “Sedalia, ain't yu los' yo' mine? Ahma man. Don' need mah woman tu go frum home tu clean th' white folks filt up. Don' worry, th' Lawd ain't gonna' let us stahv or git put outdos.
“Ah got uh Triboon newspapur tu try tu git me uh steady job. Ah ain't no fool. Ah ken cahpentur an' plastur an' paint an' lay bricks. Sedalia, Ah luv yu an' th' younguns, an' Ah ain't gonna' fail mah famli.
“Sedalia, Ah ain't lyin' tu yu. Iffen Ah did fail, Ah would dig uh ditch an' pull the groun en on top uh me. Ah knows Ah couldn't stan tu see yu makin' th' livin' an' waring mah pants. So don' worry 'bout nuthin', Sweethaht. Ah'm gonna' have happy news by th' fust uh nex' week. An' mayhaps tumorra.”
P
oor naive Papa wasn't able to keep his “happy news” promise. He went into the streets and joined the multitudes of desperate men seeking jobs. From sunup to sundown, rain, sleet or shine, Papa was out chasing down even second- and thirdhand rumors of job openings with heartbreaking results.
He'd go all day on a sandwich of cold collard greens and corn bread. Papa made me cry when he told us about the vicious building trade unions those offices and halls he haunted.
He told every white man he saw wearing a business suit and tie how his daddy down South had made him a master carpenter and brick layer, and how single-handedly he had built a wing to the big house for Mr. Wilkerson on the plantation.
He was a “character” to them, so they played the cruel game “string out” for laughs. Finally, a sympathetic official told Papa the union didn't accept blacks as members or apprentices. He patted Papa on the back. He told him it was a pity that Papa was so near white and yet so far with too much yellow in his complexion to pass.
I guess the crookedness and bigotry of Chicago was just too much for an honest and fair man. Rebuff and aching failure had
broken the spine of hope that he could find a steady job to support his family.
If it hadn't been for Jonnie Mae Hudson's money loans to Mama, we wouldn't have had food or a roof over our heads.
I remember that first week in May when Mama started scrubbing and cleaning for the white folks. Papa acted so strangely. When he would come back from sweeping out a store on Madison Street he'd go straight to the bedroom, pull down the shades and sit in half darkness.
I tried several times to go in and keep him company. He'd act like a stranger, waving his arms and speaking sharply to drive me away.
The second week in May I saw him sneak to the trash bin in the backyard to dispose of a wine bottle. When he came back to the bedroom I darted in behind him and shut the door. He spun around with a hostile look in his eyes.
I smiled and said, “Papa, please don't drive me away. Can I talk to you please? Huh?”
He grunted and sat down heavily on the side of the bed with his face in his palms.
I sat down beside him and blurted out childishly, “Papa, why don't we have fun like we used to? Did I do or say something to make you hate me? Papa, if I did, I'm sorry, and please don't be a nasty wino. I love you, Papa.”
He looked at me with stricken eyes that slowly brimmed with tears, and then with a high-pitched animal outcry of raw agony, he squeezed me to his chest and sobbed, “Cose Ah luv yu, mah babee. Ain't no resun tu luv me an' Ah ain't nuthin'. Ah ain't 'nuff man to foot mah bills.”
We clung together for an hour before he told me someone very important wanted to be alone with him. I went out and closed the door.
Moments later Carol and I heard him praying, “Lawd, yu ain't gonna' turn yo bac on me, an' Ah ain't don nuthin' sinful. Is yu,
Lawd? Yu ain't mad, Lawd, coz Ah drink uh lil' wine to sofen mah trubles, is yu? Lawd, whut is yu doin' tessin' mah faith? Lawd, iffen yu is, ken yu change 'roun an' bles me wif uh sho nuff job an' tess anuther way. Lawd, is yu fergit Ah ain't stol nuthin' an' ain't 'buse nobody en mah life? Lawd, hep me fo' Ah git niggahized lak Sojer say.”
Carol and I couldn't stand anymore of it so we hid in the shed (in case Bessie and Junior would come home and laugh at us) and cried our hearts out.
Many women like Mama were so desperate they were forced to buy their pathetic domestic jobs from employment sharks who took a big bite from their pitiful wages.
Mama did general cleaning, including wall and window washing, in the homes of middle-class whites living in the suburbs surrounding Chicago.
She'd leave before dawn and get home after dark. I don't remember that she made more than two or three dollars a day after carfare, except when she got a couple of dollars extra for serving a party until midnight or later.
She was slaving, but we weren't eating as much or as well as when Papa and Soldier were working together. Papa had often made four to six dollars a day and sometimes eight dollars.
The competition between us kids at mealtime was really rough. We wolfed down the sparse food and stayed alert to keep Junior from spearing a prize morsel from our plates. We quarreled over food at the table like starved animals.
Papa had lost his appetite, and he never ate with us anymore. So overburdened Mama had to worry with the discipline and order in the house. Papa became completely indifferent to what went on around him. He spent most of his time in the gloom of the bedroom.
Sometimes I'd go in the bedroom to visit him, and he wouldn't drive me away. He'd sit silently with me on his lap and hug me so tightly I could hardly breathe.
By the middle of steamy July Papa had become a mere shadow of himself. His grief and the poisonous wine had made him look like a hollow-eyed scarecrow. His once smooth yellow skin was bumpy and sickly looking.
His delicately chiseled features seemed indistinct in the puffy framework of his face. His once proud athletic stride became a stooped shuffle.
Mama kept clean clothes for him, but he wouldn't change into the fresh things. He grew a tangled beard. The garbage wine and his trampled nerves made his voice trembly and hoarse. New dirty gray sprouted at the roots of his curly jet hair.
But it was his eyes, his tragic, hurt eyes that I tried to avoid. All their fire was gone, and when he was spoken to, his response was tardy, like he had a short in his brain. He was only forty-six, but he acted and looked like sixty-six. Mama at thirty-two looked like his daughter.
No matter how deep and black the circles under Mama's eyes, she never missed church on Sunday. She'd blot out the circles with makeup and put on one of Bunny's freaky frocks and undulate away to the ministry of the horny little spellbinder. The last Sunday in July Mama started going to church without me.
Soldier had been transferred to the Veterans Hospital for hip therapy and general recuperation. Papa had become acquainted with a guy across the street who often visited his brother at the Vet Hospital. Papa had it all fixed with the old guy that all of our family could make the trip with him as soon as Mama got back from church, which was usually around one thirty, and no later than 2
P.M.
The old guy was parked in front of our building in his big black Dodge at 2:30
P.M.
He and Papa were irritated as hell because Mama hadn't come back from church. We all piled in, and the old guy drove past the church. It was locked.
Papa shook his head slowly, and I noticed how bad his hands were trembling. The old guy drove to the hospital without Mama.
Soldier was in a ward that looked like it had a thousand beds. He was thin and looked pooped out, but he managed a smile when he saw us. He got almost radiant when he saw the sweet potato pie we brought him.
As we were leaving, Papa asked him how long he expected to be in the hospital. Always the clown, Soldier rolled his eyes to the top of his head, and then raised himself on an elbow. He swiveled his head and looked furtively in every direction.
He stage whispered, “Frank, old pal, the finance company got what was left of the truck. The croakers tell me I've got a forever game leg. I slaughtered Krauts and suffered in the funky trenches for this white man's country. I'm gonna chisel the government like the slick white folks and stay here and rest my crippled ass like a lousy pimp. I got a buddy down the way with dough and a hooch connection.”
Mama wasn't at home when we got back. Carol made macaroni with cheese and heated some weiners for supper. Papa didn't eat. He sat on the sofa looking out the front window with his face in his hands.
After supper Junior opened the front door to go out.
Papa turned and said, “Come heah, Boy.”
Junior frowned and moped into the living room.
Papa said, “Yu bes stay 'roun 'til Sedalia git heah. Mayhaps Ah need yu tu call th' law uh sumpthin' .”
Junior tossed his head arrogantly and said, “Oh helly, ain't nuthin' happen. Mama's all right. Besides, Ah ain't goin' no whar but upstairs.”
Junior turned and walked away. Papa started to rise, and his mouth opened to probably order Junior not to leave. The door slammed behind Junior, and Papa sank back on the sofa.
For the first time I noticed something strange and yet familiar about the way Junior's legs took him through the door. Then it hit me. Junior had perfected Railhead's fancy prancy walk and lifted his “helly” expression too. I wondered if he'd get stupid enough to imitate Railhead's finess with an iron pipe.
I sat on the sofa with Papa and the twins waiting for Mama. Around 8
P.M.,
I saw a black shiny Cadillac stop way down the block. Papa noticed me craning out the window, so he stuck his head out the window.
I recognized the huge black guy who got out on the driver's side as a flunkey for the jazzy minister. He went around and opened the passenger door. Mama's orange satin dress blazed like a torch as she stepped out under a street lamp.
I heard Papa draw a deep breath. I looked at him. There was no anger on his face, just slack-jaw shock and awful anguish.
Carol and I put an arm around his shoulders. He was shivering like a naked man in a blizzard. He rose and walked jerkily toward the front door like a robot. He opened the door and looked back at us with heart wrenching eyes.
Carol screamed, “Papa, please don't leave. Papa, where yu goin'?”
Tears glistened in Papa's eyes.
His mouth worked silently, and his lips said, “I'll be back.”
And he was gone. We saw Mama and Papa nod at each other as they met on the sidewalk like they were only slightly acquainted. We raced to the door. Carol won and opened the door. Mama's eyes were bright, and when she kissed us, I got a fragrant whiff of wine. She kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the sofa.